When the news came out last summer that Volkswagen had been cheating on the emissions test and their diesel powered cars would only engage the emissions equipment when the vehicle detected it was being tested many of us were absolutely outraged. This cheating scandal affects nearly 700,000 vehicles on the road in America today and no real fix has been discovered to make it so we can understand what needs to be done to correct this problem. Has there been enough time to fix this problem, shouldn’t we have something concrete by now?

At one point Volkswagen was given until March 24^th to correct this issue which would have been over six months. So far they haven’t come up with a viable fix for this problem at all. With lawsuits already looming and the American public wondering what is going to happen it seems Volkswagen would be better off if they left the United States altogether and decided to offer no solution whatsoever, but that would put them into an even deeper hole when it comes to lawsuits and the money they need to pay out to repair the damages. If they were to leave there would be many laws that had to be addressed and the fact they have warranties to service and a plant in the US; no, they need to fix this problem.

Many fixes have been proposed and solutions offered, but if Volkswagen really does want to repair their reputation there is only one true fix that will cause the American public to trust them once again. That will come at a high price, but the right thing to do is buy back all the vehicles affected at the original sticker price or offer a gasoline version of the same car that is being bought back due to the scandal.

Yes, this will cost them billions of dollars, but they would eventually be back in the good graces of their many customers in our country. The EPA has already made some proposals to Volkswagen to create an electric vehicle and have it built in the Tennessee plant along with building an infrastructure for EVs in America. This new vehicle plus the buyback of all the ones already affected should be enough to help us regain our confidence in the Volkswagen brand that has already experienced massive sales decline over the past several months which includes a significant drop in sales over the first quarter of the year.

For an interesting and somewhat entertaining perspective on this scandal check out this video by Craig Cole from AutoGuide. His view and wit may be a little over the top, but he certainly has his numbers right and understands what we as Americans need from Volkswagen in order to fix the damage that has been done to their once stellar reputation. Volkswagen, it’s time to step up and finally repair the damage you have done by cheating on the test and polluting our air in an extremely unacceptable manner.